Ilhan Omar Calls Impeachment a Question of ‘When and How’

Rep.-elect Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) repeated her call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment Tuesday, describing it as a matter of not if, but of "when and how."

Speaking with John Berman on CNN’s "New Day," Omar first outlined some of her policy initiatives. She described her goal of "uplifting and restoring our democracy."

Berman pointed out that Omar was one of the few Democrats to campaign on a promise to impeach the president, and he asked how that would fit into her priorities. "How hard will you push on that?" he asked. "Is that something you will call for as soon as January?"

Omar told Berman she expects recent events to resolve the impeachment question. "I mean, if this report comes out and and we keep having the breaking headlines every single day, I'm pretty sure that it's going to call for itself," she said.

She said the administration's conduct and the several investigations into Trump’s alleged misconduct portend ill for his chances of escaping impeachment. "We know that this president, this administration every day has gone a little bit closer to being impeached, and I think these investigations are going to be very revealing in the next coming months," she said.

Once the contents of the investigations are made public and Robert Mueller’s special counsel report are released, Omar anticipates impeachment will be unavoidable. "We won't be having these conversations on whether to do it, but it’s going to be when and how," she said.

Speaking earlier this month with the podcast hosts of "Pod Save America," Omar assured she was working towards having the "president, who is corrupt in so many ways, to not be the face and the leader of our nation." During the campaign, Omar called Trump a tyrant."I recognize him as a tyrant," she said. "I recognize him as someone who has developed tendencies of dictatorship."

Berman pressed Omar about her priorities and eagerness to impeach. He noted that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and other Democrats have tried to avoid allowing impeachment to distract from their legislative agenda. "Nancy Pelosi, who will be the speaker, and others have said, ‘look, we need to focus on governing here and let the investigations take care of themselves,'" Berman said.

Omar, already adopting Washington’s pablum, reassured Berman that Democrats "can walk and chew gum at the same time." Though she was in Washington to legislate, she explained, the American people "also want us to resist and make sure we exercise our oversight powers and hold this administration accountable."

Before ending the interview, Berman asked Omar to defend her tweet from last week in which she captioned a photograph of Vice President Mike Pence, "Jesus take the wheel! #BorderWall." Berman explained that "there has been some criticism" of the tweet for "making fun of the faith of Mike Pence."

Omar defended the tweet by calling it a harmless "expression of exasperation." She claimed that the caption is what she "would be thinking."